Second, there is the influence of globalization, especially the communications revolution. This magnified the effect of debate in Israel as American Jews became more able to easily access diverse Israeli opinions over the Internet.64 Even before then, the increasing ability of the American media to broadcast on television images of Israeli military actions and the resultant civilian casualties during the First Lebanon War and, more important, the first intifada, supplied dovish critics of Likud policy with increased ammunition and legitimacy.65
Third, there is the impact of Israeli behavior toward American Jewry. The crises over “Who is a Jew” and the Pollard affair severely challenged the idealized image of the Israel that could do no wrong, and subsequently American Jews were less willing to accept Israel’s political lead unquestioningly.66
Finally, there are the changes in nature of younger Jews’ attachment to Israel, discussed in the previous chapter. Young non-Orthodox and nonestablishment leaders tend not to view Israel or American Jews as under serious threat, and consequently they do not identify with the established American Jewish defense organizations like AIPAC, the ADL, and the AJC, which embody the norm of consensual solidarity that arose in the wake of the Holocaust. Instead, those with progressive and/or expressive orientations seek to promote their values in Israel itself, and this involves taking sides in Israeli politics, notably concerning the peace process.67
Institutional Polarization in the Twenty-First Century: Can the Center Hold?
Since the late 1980s centrifugal forces have been increasingly eroding the political and institutional coherence of the pro-Israel lobby. The question remains as to the extent of institutional polarization over Israel. In particular, three issues need to be addressed. First, is the norm of consensual solidarity weakening within the mainstream? Second, has the conventional lobby developed a tilt to the ideological right? And third, is the left-wing lobby drifting away from the center and the Zionist consensus toward post-Zionism?
The Weakening of Consensual Solidarity
The growth of ideological divisions over Israel has been institutionalized in the development of left- and right-wing pro-Israel lobbying organizations alongside the conventional mainstream organizations. On the Left there is Americans for Peace Now, founded in the 1980s; Israel Policy Forum, founded in the 1990s; and J Street, founded in 2008, which as of 2010 incorporates Brit Tzedek v’Shalom.68
Of these, J Street is the most important. Just eighteen months after its establishment, J Street’s national conference drew more than 1,500 supporters and featured a keynote address from James Jones, the national security advisor, and a gala dinner attended by forty-four members of Congress. These organizations share the positions of the Zionist Left in Israel. They oppose Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, favor a division of Jerusalem, and strongly support the establishment of a Palestinian state. They also favor strong U.S. diplomatic engagement to advance the peace process even if this involves pressure on the Israeli government. As one Brit Tzedek activist put it: “I distinguish between support for Israel and support for Israel’s government.”69 Meanwhile, among the right-wing organizations are Americans for a Safe Israel, American Friends of Likud, JINSA, and, since the early 1990s, the ZOA.70 They share the positions of the Israeli Right. As such they support settlements and Israel’s control of the West Bank, and oppose the establishment of a Palestinian state, for a mixture of nationalist and security reasons. They tend to regard the Palestinians not as potential partners for peace but as implacable foes of Israel, and they are highly suspicious of U.S. diplomatic engagement in the peace process.
By publicly criticizing and lobbying against the Israeli government and by speaking and operating at cross-purposes to the conventional lobby, these ideological lobbies have eroded three central elements of consensual solidarity, namely, public support for the policy of the Israeli government, community consensus, and speaking with a unified voice. Since the 1990s, they have attracted increased attention and they play a significant role. Still it is important not to exaggerate their significance.71 They are less popular, smaller, and less powerful than the mainstream organizations. Even according to a poll sponsored by J Street, a plurality of American Jews agreed that the established Jewish organizations represent their views on Israel.72
Moreover, the collapse of the Oslo process in 2000, coupled with a subsequent wave of suicide terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians, constrained the willingness to confront the Israeli government. As Rabbi Martin Wiener, president of the Central Conference of American Reform Rabbis (CCAR), admitted: “Many of us who supported the Oslo process in the past decade have to admit that Palestinians do not want peace.”73 Only fringe groups like those associated with Tikkun magazine adopted a decidedly different tact, sympathizing with the very small minority of Israeli Jews who refused to serve in the Israel Defense Forces.74 Not surprisingly, representatives of the Right, such as the ZOA, opposed the Disengagement plan for a unilateral Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. However, they did not succeed in mobilizing a wide coalition against the policy. The Orthodox were muted in their response, in part because of the trauma induced by Rabin’s assassination in 1995 and in part because Disengagement was initiated by Ariel Sharon and not the Left.75 In addition, the American Jewish community was still able to demonstrate consensual solidarity with Israel during the 2006 Second Lebanon War, even though some had doubts about aspects of Israeli policy.
For the overwhelming majority, the consensus was summed up in a February 2008 plenum resolution of the Jewish Council of Public Affairs:
With regard to the issue of settlements generally, we recognize that within our own community there are divergent views … At the same time, we are united in the belief that the root cause of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not Israeli settlements but the continued unwillingness of the Palestinian national leadership and most Arab states to accept the state of Israel as a permanent sovereign Jewish state in the Middle East within secure borders … As the Israeli government enters negotiations on permanent status issues, the organized Jewish community should support those efforts, consistent with our longstanding tradition of supporting the efforts of Israel’s government to achieve peace and security.76
Nonetheless, such expressions of solidarity did not represent a return to the 1970s. Some on the Israeli Left began to promote a narrative that placed the blame for the collapse of the Oslo process on both sides. This began to have an impact on liberals in the Diaspora, especially after the Labor party left Sharon’s government in the autumn of 2003. Subsequently, the dovish Brit Zedek organization collected over ten thousand signatures in support for the Geneva draft permanent status agreement negotiated by Yossi Beilin and Yasir Abd Rabbo, which was vigorously opposed by Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon.77
There were also increasing clashes between the mainstream and the left over more practical issues. Thus, there was disagreement over the question of U.S. aid to the PA. In 2006 AIPAC lobbied for legislation setting strict limits on aid to the PA so long as Hamas – which controlled Gaza – maintained its support for terrorism and refused to recognize Israel. Meanwhile, dovish Jewish groups argued for a softer version of the bill.78 In 2007, AIPAC joined the doves in supporting aid to the PA, which annoyed some of its right-wing donors, who threatened to pull out of AIPAC while backing the ZOA campaign against aid.79
Not only had the divisions of the 1990s resurfaced, they actually intensified, becoming more deeply and widely ingrained. This was very apparent during the Gaza War in 2008–2009. While the mainstream lobby gave Israel very strong backing, dovish groups came out against the war from the outset, calling for an immediate cease-fire.80 One day after the campaign began, J Street’s campaigns director wrote that “while there is nothing ‘right’ in raining rockets on Israeli families or dispatching suicide bombers, there is nothing ‘right’ in punishing a million and a half already-suffering Gazans for the actions of the extremists among them … Neither Israelis nor Palestinia
ns have a monopoly on right or wrong.”81
Meanwhile, on the Right, following the Disengagement, in December 2005 the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations (OU) passed a formal resolution giving its leadership the authority, for the first time, to take public stands on Israeli domestic policies and territorial integrity.82 In 2007 the Ultra-Orthodox Agudath Yisrael of America passed a resolution stating that Israel should not surrender any part of Jerusalem to Palestinian sovereignty, and that America’s government should not pressure it into doing so. This was the first time it took a public stance on the peace process. Subsequently, it joined with the OU and right-wing organizations in forming the Coalition for Jerusalem, which lobbied against the division of Jerusalem, which was then the policy of the Israeli government headed by Ehud Olmert.83 In response the Union of Reform Judaism president, Eric Yoffie, declared, “If the Israeli right wing mobilizes its supporters in the U.S. against such an agreement, the Reform movement would respond in kind.”84 In fact, they had already taken some steps in this direction, having been publicly critical of Israeli policies regarding the separation barrier.85 In 2009 the CCAR came out in support of Obama’s call for a settlement freeze, declaring that settlements were “an obstacle to peace.”86 In 2012, the Reform movement came out against a congressional bid to close down the PLO office in Washington, which was supported by AIPAC.87
Tilting to the Right?
Perhaps more significant than these specific incidents is the sense among liberal Jewish organizations that the mainstream organizations tilt to the Right on Israel, and that this brings their claims to represent the American Jewish consensus into question. This issue was brought into sharp relief when the Conference of Presidents rejected J Street’s application for membership in 2014. The Reform movement threatened that it might leave the Conference altogether over the issue. Other major players, such as JCPA and the Conservative movement, also called for reform of the Conference to make it more representative.88
Indeed, some claim that AIPAC and the Conference of Presidents do not strictly abide by the maxim of supporting the elected Israeli government.89 As Rabbi Eric Yoffie noted with regard to the Conference of Presidents, “[It] has been much more outspoken and forceful in supporting governments of the right than those of the left. I feel strongly that during the Rabin and Barak years the conference simply did not demonstrate the same kind of energy and aggressive support for the policies of the Israeli government that it did during the Shamir and Netanyahu years.”90 Or as Dan Fleshler opined, “Their organizational cultures are most comfortable when they can take forceful stances against Israel’s ‘enemies’ – e.g., Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, and far left-wing critics of Israel. They tend to be less comfortable about enthusiastically supporting peace initiatives that require a certain amount of trust in Arab intentions or bold territorial compromises.”91 He later said, “It is not that they actively supported settlements, rather that they actively defended Likud governments, but were not actively supportive of the Oslo process.”92
In the 1980s the Likud took a greater interest than Labor in the organized Jewish community, quietly supporting those more sympathetic to its approach, such as Malcolm Hoenlein, who became the executive director of the Conference of Presidents, to assume positions of power.93 Moreover, within the Conference of Presidents, conservative groups outnumber the liberal ones; given that the Conference operates on the basis of consensus, this impedes the organization from taking forthright stands in favor of Israeli governments of the Left.94
AIPAC activists come in various ideological shades, but as Doug Bloomfield, a former AIPAC legislative director, explained, “AIPAC members tend to be more hard line and defensive when it comes to Israel’s security than the mainstream of the American Jewish community.”95 A revealing example of this tendency was evident at AIPAC’s 1993 annual policy conference:
When Israeli Ambassador, Itamar Rabinovich, told the 2,400 participants that not just Arabs but also Israel would have to make compromises for peace, only one delegate in the cavernous auditorium clapped. Sensing the awkward moment, Rabinovich recovered by saying: “If it is hard to applaud the concessions we have to make, let us applaud the concessions the Arabs will have to provide.” The crowd roared.96
As the former AIPAC executive director Neil Sher remarked, “Getting AIPAC to support Oslo was like pulling teeth.”97 Former deputy foreign minister Yossi Beilin, an architect of the Oslo Accords, was also extremely critical of AIPAC on this score.98
Still, when Labor came to power in Israel in 1992 and Clinton took the White House in 1993, Steve Grossman, a Democrat and a moderate dove, was appointed chairman of AIPAC. AIPAC vice president Harvey Friedman was forced to resign after he declared that Prime Minister Rabin had chutzpah for suggesting that Israel might withdraw from the Golan, and after he made a derogatory reference to Yossi Beilin. AIPAC has always included the pursuit of peace in its talking points, and this sometimes became the focus of its lobbying efforts.99 Thus, AIPAC assisted the Labor government by lobbying against ZOA initiatives to attack the Oslo process – for example, by opposing the Specter-Shelby Amendment and working to reverse initial congressional rejection of aid to the Palestinians following the Wye II Agreement between Barak and the PA. Also following Barak’s victory in 1999, AIPAC dropped its opposition to a Palestinian state and – in response to requests from Jerusalem – did not criticize Clinton’s use of the presidential veto regarding moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem.100
Despite this there are two issues about which the question of a rightward tilt remained pertinent in the first decade of the twenty-first century: the 2005 Disengagement from Gaza and the question of Jerusalem. With regard to the disengagement, although many mainstream organizations signed an Israel Policy Forum ad in the New York Times supporting Disengagement, AIPAC and the Conference of Presidents did not officially support it until a very late stage, and even then support was muted.101 For a significant period, AIPAC did very little to drum up support for the plan in Congress.102 However, AIPAC did strongly back the move at its 2005 Policy Conference, and it subsequently lobbied Congress for aid to help relocate the Gaza settlers. The delay in announcing support may have had something to do with uncertainty as to whether the plan would actually be implemented, given Sharon’s defeat on the issue in the Likud referendum.103 However, according to one participant in the discussion within the Conference of Presidents, even though a majority supported the plan, the situation deteriorated to a “critical point, threatening the unity of the organization.”104 Indeed, even after the measure gained the support of the Knesset, Foxman criticized the Conference of Presidents’ support for Disengagement as “lukewarm and feeble.”105
The challenge posed by the issue of Jerusalem has been more sustained and complicated. In 1995 Republican senator Robert Dole launched an initiative to move the American embassy to Jerusalem at the annual AIPAC conference. The Conference of Presidents supported the move in principle but was uncommitted to the specifics. The reason for its hesitation was that the Labor-led government opposed the move, fearing it could lead to the collapse of the peace process.106 Given the Israeli position, the AJC and the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council refused to back the Dole initiative.107 The final version of the bill granted the president a waiver to postpone the move for six months on grounds of national security, which effectively neutralized it. This allowed everyone to support the bill. Indeed, as of 2014 the regular use of the waiver means that the American Embassy remains in Tel Aviv.
Matters reached a head again in 2000 when the Barak government proposed the division of Jerusalem at Camp David. Subsequently, mainstream Diaspora leaders, including Ronald Lauder, the chairman of the Conference of Presidents, took part in a large demonstration in Jerusalem to protest against such plans. Lauder claimed to have addressed the demonstration in a personal capacity but that was not how the Israeli government and some members of the Conference viewed the matter.108 As a result, the organization banned its
chairman from making further controversial statements.109 Yet at the same time, Malcolm Hoenlein implicitly backed Lauder by arguing that Jerusalem was an issue on which the Jews worldwide should have a say. Similarly, in 2008 during the Annapolis negotiations, Abe Foxman argued that “since Jerusalem belongs to all the Jewish people, decisions about its future are not just an Israeli decision,” but one that American Jews should have their say in, even if that meant opposing the policies of the Israeli government.110 In adopting this position the ADL and the Conference of Presidents may have been, at least in part, attempting to counterbalance Arab and Muslim lobbying on Jerusalem. Muslim and Arab states see Jerusalem as an issue over which they should have a say – they do not view it as a purely Palestinian issue. Indeed, Egypt and Saudi Arabia actually worked to stiffen Palestinian opposition to compromise over Jerusalem in 2000.
This vague and intermittent right-wing tilt may become more pronounced. Ideological conservatives are 10 to 20 percent more likely than liberals to be among those with the strongest connection to Israel.111 Many of these political conservatives identify with the Orthodox movement, which is the fastest growing segment of the community. They are already more politically mobilized for Israel per capita than other subgroups,112 and much more hawkish regarding the peace process.
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